The Continued.
by Britz
Summary: My very own continuation of #54, blood, goop, a body-stealing nut-job, impure thoughts, general evil, big guns, fighting...And laughter, Final chapter up!
1. Smooth Touchdown

Britz- Britz's sense of humor + continuation of #54 - anything of logical sense = this fic.   
Be afraid, be very afraid.  
  
Disclaimer- I have NO idea what I'm going to do with this story so can we just say nothing is mine please? Maybe I'll write a giant disclaimer for the end or something anyhow let's start with the obvious, Animorphs isn't mine, half the jokes won't be mine (kidding), hell the concept isn't even mine I'm just doing it with humor.  
  
~The Continued~  
  
Chapter One: Marco  
  
Jake took a deep breath. He looked around the bridge at each of us. At Tobias. At me. "What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?"  
  
I nodded, wishing I had kept my mouth shut.  
  
There was a dangerous smile on Jake's face.  
  
Rachel's smile.  
  
"Full emergency power to the engines," Jake said. "Ram the Blade ship."  
  
DUH! DUH! DA!!  
  
"Oh you have GOT to be shitting us." I replied.  
  
"Well I'm glad the book cut off before you got to say that." Jake told me, "No I'm not shitting you, ram the bloody thing."  
  
"You sure about that?"  
  
"I'm positive." Jake told me calmly.  
  
"How positive?" I asked him.  
  
Oh Christ, Tobias cut in before Jake could tell me, didn't we go through that in another fic?  
  
"Two fics actually" I said.  
  
"We have thirty seconds to impact here Jake" Menderash suddenly spoke up.  
  
I turned to the ship's viewscreen, it was definantly not a comforting site, I could see right through the Blade ship's windscreen, I was so close I could see the ship's pilot mouth the words 'that isn't good' and further in the background the stewardess was explaining to panicked controllers what to do in the event of a space ship collision, basically put your lunch tray in the upright position, bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your sweet ass goodbye.  
  
Jake said something to me which I didn't quite hear.  
  
"What was that?" I asked.  
  
"Worried I made the wrong decision?" He repeated.  
  
"Nah." I said, "I bought the flight insurance."  
  
Then I could hear 'The One' laughing like a crazed evil jackel. I turned back to the viewscreen, the fuzzy dice that hung from the Blade ships rear vision mirror rushed up to greet me, there was a explosion louder than a front row seat, next to the speakers at a 'Big Day Out' concert. Then I slipped into endless black with the laughter from the evil thing Ax had become still ringing in my ears.  
  
On reflection I really hoped I survived, I wouldn't want my exit from this world to sound so God-damn dramatic.  
  
Chapter Two: Jake  
  
Last thing I remebered was the hideous laughter of 'The One' and then it all went dark.  
  
Then I was woken up. Someone was standing over me but I couldn't see who, my vision was so blurry, my head hurt, my arms hurt, my crotch hurt.... Oh screw it basically I ached all over.  
  
"Professor?" My vision cleared and I saw it was Santorelli, Santorelli was alive? I was alive?  
  
"Santorelli," I said, my voice wavered. "Aren't we dead now?"  
  
Santorelli was obviously amused "No sir," he smiled "I checked myself for holes but nope, just the usual ones." His grin widened, I recognised his joy from back in my days as an Animorph, the good old 'Holy Hell, I can't believe we survived that, happy to be alive.'  
  
I sat up suddenly, turning a furious ache in my back to even angrier stabs of pain, "How's everyone else doing?" I asked.  
  
"I could do with a cup of coffee." Jeanne spoke up, "But I'll live." I looked over in the direction of her voice, she was sitting bent over, rubbing her temples, looking like she had a vicious migraine but otherwise unhurt.   
  
"Marco and Tobias?" I looked around.  
  
"They're alright but still unconcious." Santorelli told me.  
  
"Menderash?" I asked but looking around I saw him sitting up in the pilot's chair, inspecting the ship's instruments. "How's Rachel going Menderash?"  
  
Menderash turned my way, "well considering she's dead I doubt she's going to well, although maybe we could get Ouija board and ask her."  
  
I rubbed my temples out of annoyence and sucked air through my teeth "the ship Menderash, the ship."  
  
"Oh right, well the pilots chair doesn't go up and down anymore and the radio now only picks a non-stop 'country and western' music channel, but I can't detect anymore damage."  
  
"Really? Well that's good news." I was surprised, we were all alive and the ship was in perfect health.  
  
"Actually it's not," Menderash interrupted my train of thought. "The reason I can't detect anymore damage is because the part of the ship that detects damage was destroyed entirely during the attack."  
  
"Oh." was all I could say.  
  
"This is very bad because that particular part was spread through the entire back half of the ship."  
  
"Oh." Was all I could come up with again.  
  
"We had a look around the old fasioned way professor." Jeanne told me, "we checked for damage."  
  
"And?" I wasn't sure I really wanted an answer.  
  
"It isn't good." Santorelli replied.  
  
"Engines?"  
  
"Gone."  
  
"Food stores?"  
  
"Gone."  
  
"Communications?"  
  
"Gone."  
  
"Weapon systems?"  
  
"Gone."  
  
"Even the kitchen sink?"  
  
"Yes it's gone."  
  
I was getting a little exasperated, "What's left then?"  
  
"It's appears this room is the only thing that survived the ramming." Jeanne said.  
  
"How the hell does that work?" I nearly yelled.  
  
"The command room has been specially designed to be extra hardy." Menderash answered, "It can go down more times than Maryah Carey and still stay strong."  
  
I was amused despite myself, an Andalite who could tell a decent joke? Interesting. "Is there any good news?"  
  
"Well during the attack the string snapped for the fuzzy dice that were hanging from our rear vision mirror so we now have a slightly more tasteful cockpit." Menderash said.  
  
"Great, just great, where are we by the way?" I asked.  
  
"We crash landed on a nearby planet in the middle of the Kelbrid systrem," Menderash replied, "I believe it's inhabited, atmosphere's breathable, gravity and conditions basically those of Earth."  
  
"Well that's some good news at least." Santorelli said, "Out of all the planets to crash-land on at least we were lucky enough to land on one with Earth-like conditions."  
  
"Not much luck to it really," Menderash said, "They're all like that, haven't you ever seen 'Star-Trek'?"  
  
"Oh yeah."  
  
"Alright here's the plan." I spoke up, "When Marco and Tobias come round we'll check the place out alright?"  
  
Chapter Three: Marco  
  
Oy vey, I ached all over.  
  
I opened my eyes and tried to look around but my vision was all fractured and blurry, I blinked a couple of times and it cleared a little.  
  
A feminine heavily-accented voice floated in from outside my vision, "Wakey wakey, get off the floor gorgeous."   
  
"...Can't...Dead..." I moaned.  
  
"No, you're not." The voice replied, unmistakably Jeanne, man did I love her accent.  
  
"Are you sure?" I asked her.  
  
"Very."  
  
"That's the best news I've heard all day. especially since I wouldn't want to die without ever having made love to your beautiful self." I sniggered despite my pain.  
  
"You're not dead Marco, although you soon could be." I could hear the smile through her voice.  
  
With a stupid grin on my face I turned on my side, "So you'll give it some thought then?"  
  
She gave a gasp of both exasperation and more so amusement then turned away to Jake "Hey professor, our young Casanova is awake. Unfortuantly." She turned back to me and battered her eyelashes for my benifit.  
  
God did she remind me so much of Rachel.  
  
I staggered to my feet, rubbing my forehead, damnit if I didn't have the mudda and pappa of all headaches, I felt like Robert Downey Jr after a night out on the town but other wise I seemed okay.  
  
"How you feeling?" Jake asked.  
  
"Like Robert Downey Jr after a night out on the town, (hey there was no point in wasting a good line,) but otherwise okay, how's everyone else doing?"  
  
"We're all fine, we've been waiting for you, you're the last to wake up." Jake told me.  
  
"Yeah well, I never was much of a morning person." I swallowed, my throat felt dry and papery.  
  
"Well if there are no objections, let's go have a looksie outside." Jake told everyone.  
  
Well that was wierd, "woah woah Jake, outside? Where are we?"  
  
"We crash landed on a 'Kelbrid' planet. Strange, unknown, most likley dangerous as hell," Jake grinned, "fun huh?"  
  
"Yeah, it sounds like one bitchen barrel of monkeys to me." I drawled. "Well I'm up for it, any instructions big Jake?"  
  
Tobias instead supplied some instructions, rather more sarcastic than needed I thought. Yeah, set phasers to nuke, shoot to kill and if the Kelbrid take you alive don't let them give you to the women.  
  
Jeanne chuckled at this and I looked over at Tobias, by hawk standards he looked about as bad as I felt. "Hey bird-boy, never thought I'd be so glad to see you, how you doing?"  
  
He preened at one of his ruffled feathers I'm hungry, in pain, I'm too tired to morph and mend myself and I can tell you this: not in all my years of solitude did I miss any aspect of civilised society as deeply as I miss caffine right now. You?  
  
"Well, I'm alive which is better than I expected to be this morning so can't complain."  
  
Tobias fixed his intense hawk gaze on me, please Marco, I'm having a very bad day, I don't think I could take it if you start being cheery.  
  
"Okay point taken." Just the fact of his terminally bad mood put me in a better one. Misery may love company but his wasn't going to find companionship in me, I was alive so who cares?  
  
"Are we leaving now professor?" Santorelli asked Jake.  
  
"Yeah lets get out of here" Jake said and he headed over to the cockpit door but when he opened it I gave a little gasp of surprise.  
  
That door should have lead into the main hallway, it seemed that was no longer the case, basically because there no longer was a main hallway and apparently nothing else either.   
  
Jake looked out the door to the surrounding landscape, we were obviously somewhere in the middle of an alien forest, what was left of the ship had landed in the middle of a huge clearing, well that is to say it made the large clearing when it landed, the trees had collapsed and the ground was black and burned.  
  
"Guess we must have made one hell of an entrance." Jake muttered and he jumped out the door and landed on the ashy ground that laid 5 or 6 feet bellow the bottum of the dooway, "watch out for that first step!" He yelled up.  
  
We all exited the ship without any trouble and set off for the treeline, Jake made the call for us to head out, he gave us no reason why, nobody asked him either, because we all knew why. When we had come down we must have made one hell of a bang and if the Kelbrid come looking the crash-site would be pretty bloody easy for them to find.  
  
And even easier for 'The One.'  
  
We reached the crater's edge and I looked back at what remained of our ship, it truely was just the command room, a battered, ugly black cylinder. It was useless as a space craft and as dead as the girl it had been named after many months ago.  
  
"Everyone remember where we parked." I called to the others as we walked into the dark, alien forest.  
  
Britz-To be continued ladies and gentle man, how about writing me a review and telling me if you'd like me to:  
  
A: Stop checking the reviews for my latest story and get to writing the second bit already.  
  
B: EAT AT JOE'S.  
  
C: Forget about writing this story and begin writing the ultimate fanfic, an in-depth, touching piece about monkeys writing 'Hamlet'.  
  
D: Beat out my own fic-obbessed brains with a sack full of doorknobs.  
  
SELECT NOW! 


	2. First Contact

Britz-Back for more? Well I shall waste no time in giving it to you...More that is.....You know, of the story....  
  
~The Continued, Continued!~  
  
Chapter Four: Tobias  
  
The six of us had been treking through the alien forest for about half an hour now, there was still no sign of any of the mysterious Kelbrid's, that should have made us happy but somehow it made us all a bit more jumpy with each passing minute, like we were getting closer to something seriously nerve-racking although we had no idea what thease Kelbrid were.  
  
Okay, if you want to get technical the other five were the ones doing the walking, I however spent varying intervals either perched on Jake's sholder or flying cover for the others, just like the old days.  
  
I was taking off for another look around when I noticed we appeared to have picked up an extra guy for our little group.  
  
I let out a squawk of pure hawk and fluttered my wings, gaining meagre altitude, I was just so surprised.  
  
Of course logically it should be impossible that some guy could just come along and join our little posse without any of us noticing his arrival but the thing was he had blended amongst because he was just so....Average looking, brown hair, brown eyes, average height and the very air of the guy was one of general unimportance and basic uselessness. Something about the vibes coming off this guy really struck a chord in my subconscious, some distant memory from my life as a human boy, so many years ago.  
  
The others all craned their necks up and stared at me after hearing my squawk, "what is it Tobias?" Jake asked me.  
  
We've picked up a groupie. I told him, and gestured with my head towards our mysterious new companion, who I now noticed was wearing a futuristic-looking red jumpsuit, my brain also stored that away, no matter what the memory was, the red jumpsuit was part of it.  
  
Everyone else jumped back from the strange newbie simultanously, identical looks of shock and surprise on their faces.  
  
"Santorelli! Grab him!" Ordered Jake, snapping into his fearless leader mode in a second.  
  
Santorelli looked hesitant but he was a good soldier. He grabbed the man's arm and held it behind the back of the now bewildered guy.  
  
The 'average' guy let out a yelp of pain and surprise then his eyes darted back and forth as if he was very confused by this turn of events.  
  
"Who are you?" Jake asked him, he sounded like he was demanding the answer.  
  
"I...I'm an extra." The guy said simply, as if that should explain everything.  
  
"What?" Marco said.  
  
"An extra," he repeated. "You know like in Star Trek."  
  
Oh of course! I realised what the 'extra' was going on about, probaly cause I was such a Star Trek fan back when I was a kid.  
  
"Oh yeah totally!" Marco mocked my enthusiasm with sarcasm, "Tobias, pray tell, what the hell is going on here?"  
  
Well it's like he said, in Star Trek. I explained, explaning nothing.  
  
"And?" Marco asked me with a tone of voice like he was speaking to a very slow-witted five year old.  
  
Well you see here's the thing, I said, In Star Trek, when there's a problem where someone could die, since one of the important people can't die there's always an extra in a red jump suit who's killed off to build suspense.  
  
Marco considered this "So...What? Something bad is about to happen right?"  
  
Without waiting for an answer Jake jumped into action, the realisation plain on his face, "Santorelli get away from him!" He yelled.  
  
Santorelli didn't need to be told twice, he released the guy and backed away from him pretty damn fast.  
  
Good thing he did, mere seconds later three spears, like the type from spear-guns, flew in from different directions and turned the poor extra into a human pin cusion.  
  
The extra fell to the ground and writhed around for a bit but died quickly, extra's never did last to long.  
  
Then, from the direction that one of the spears had come from came a gravelly, throaty and strangly relaxed voice, "Hey, how's it hanging?"   
  
Chapter Five: Marco  
  
The situation I was now in strangely made me think of a stand up comedy routine I once saw on TV.  
  
The comedian was Jimoen and he was going on about how there are some situations where you just get as surprised as you can get and then when something else surprising happens you have nowhere to go.  
  
Well in the situation I was now in that was perfectly true.  
  
First there was the fun little shock to the system when a guy in a red jumpsuit seemingly appears out of thin air, was I surprised? Well is Eminem our society's greatest arguement for birth control? Yes.  
  
Then there was the non-sensical explanation for red jumpsuit man's appearence, well of course! An extra like Star Trek! How obvious! Deeply sarcastic? Yes. Was I a little surprised? Naaah, okay yes, I'm just still being sarcastic.  
  
And when this 'extra' was shish-kebabed before my eye's, well I think over my years as an Animorph I had experienced alot of surprise's, so I was probaly a bit more resistant than most people but I reached my daily maximum for surprise, hell just waking up this morning with all limbs and genitals attached was a big surprise.  
  
So when the walking talking lizard-man asked me, in perfect english, 'How's it hanging?' I had no where to go, just as Jimoen had said happens.  
  
"Low, lazy and slightly to the left." Seemed like a perfectly reasonable answer to me, so I said it, the lizard-man flung back his head and laughed, although it was a joyful laugh it was a very disturbing thing to hear, like a choking man with a VERY deep voice laughing.  
  
Now more alien creatures started to enter the clearing, the same species as the original lizard-man, they were weird-looking bastards, like a huge iguana had decided to start walking upright, their skin was like a freshly paved road, tar-black and pebbly. Their hands were clawed but human-like, and their jaws, the teeth sure looked vicious enough but the jaw line was twisted into a permanent smile, it reminded me of ever-present smile of the dolphin, creepier, more cocky, but similar.  
  
"Kelbrid's right?" I asked though I already felt sure of it.  
  
"That is correct my friend" spoke the first Kelbrid, I guessed he was a few inches over 7 feet, tallest of the six Kelbrid that formed a loose circle around but not by much, I also noticed he loosely held what looked like a customized spear gun in his left hand, "My name is Entragian, Collie Entragian, I'm here to take in the people who inconsiderately littered in our fair national park."  
  
Littering? Tobias was puzzled.  
  
"Yeah that big hunk of crap you dumped in the forest back there," Entragian told him, "something that big you really should dispose of thoughtfully." His delivery was serious and casual, but behind it all I'm pretty sure he was just playing us for fools, the permanent grin and the gravelly voice made it hard to judge.  
  
"Oh." Menderash sounded confused but he wasn't about to disagree, "sorry about that."  
  
"You should be," Entragian reprimanded, "You know you landed on a bunch of hippies who had chained themselves to the tree's there to protest the logging."  
  
"Oh, sorry about that too." Jake told him.  
  
Entragian gave a dismissive wave of his clawed hand, "eh, bunch of tree-huggers, screw 'em."  
  
I smiled a little a that, I just had this moment where I really wished Cassie was here to hear that. I know, I'm sick.  
  
Then I noticed a couple of that a couple of the other Kelbrid's were chuckling, at least I hoped they were chuckling, the noise they made was like gravel going around in a dryer.  
  
The tension was getting to much for me, Entragian was messing with our heads, nothing surer, what the hell was he planning for us? Was he just having fun with the out-of-towners before he turned them into pin cusions like our unfortunate extra? I decided to take a risk, if it was going to end here I might as well get it over with.  
  
I marched straight up to Entragian, a few members of his little posse straightened up a little, their hands crept a little closer to their hip holster's, every holster held a monster mother of a side arm. But Entragian didn't seem worried in the slightest, his posture was relaxed as ever and there even seemed to be a flicker of amusement in his eyes.  
  
"Okay Entragian, cut the B.S. What are you gonna do with us?" Pointing my finger as aggressively as I could.  
  
I could practically see the look on Jake's face, 'he's gonna kiiiill me' a random thought ran through my brain, but then I was probaly more at risk of Entragian killing me at the moment.  
  
Entragian was obviously not impressed by my little speech, the ever-present cocky grin even went up a couple of notches, making for a very toothy grin. I gulped, my mouth suddenly felt very dry.  
  
Then Entragian moved faster than the eye could follow, all of a sudden he was pointing his monster hand gun straight at my head, faster than a rattler, the gun just sort of, appeared. I didn't see any movement from him, not a flinch so he could slow down and aim the gun, it was just him standing there one second, next second his side arm was pointed dead center at my forehead.  
  
I damn near wet myself, he was just so fast, if Entragian wanted I'd be dead 10 times over before I could think of morphing. And the size of the bloody gun, by human standards it was as long as a sawn-off shotgun but thicker, it was deeply black all over.  
  
"What am I to do with you? Why I'm taking you in my friend." Entragian told me, his tone as nonchalant as a giant lizard's can sound. "Now are you gonna come along quietly or am I gonna have to get my nice clean gun all dirty with your frontal lobe?" There were more of those disturbing chuckling sounds, now they came from all five other Kelbrid.  
  
I decided to go along quietly.  
  
~The Continued, Continued! Is to be continued.~  
  
Britz- Be nice and review, and I'll be nice and mosy on along with the next chapter, come on give me something, I have to have feedback or I won't write the next chapter, no that isn't one of those idiot threats, I won't be able to write it cause I'll be checking for reviews every five minutes until I get some.  



	3. Jail Break

Britz-I'm back! Thanks for all the reviews but can I just point one thing out, GEM is supposed to write the next chapter for our combined story, I wrote the first chapter, Gem is supposed to write the second one, then you guys should get on my back about it alright? I'll ask her about it okay?  
  
Updated Disclaimer-Just thought I should say this, the name 'Collie Entragian' isn't mine, it's from 'Desperation' by Stephen King, I just thought it was a good name for the character. (fan-friggen-tastic book by the way.)  
  
~Continuation of The Continued, Continued!~  
~~~(Joke is starting to get corny huh?)~~~  
  
Chapter Six: Tobias  
  
The others were man-handled by the Kelbrid through the alien forest and into what appeared to be police hover-cars, their were two cars, they were black all over except for aggressive-looking alien letters in red and dark green which ringed around their sides, the only real resemblance to the police cars of Earth were the flashing bar lights on top, they were blood-red and green like the letters on the sides.  
  
Meanwhile I flew over head, keeping watch and not sure of what to do, I couldn't morph and go in cause the Kelbrid had guns and that near-supernatural speed. All I could do was stay out of trouble and hope I could help later.  
  
When we reached the vans Entragian was still looking around, trying to find anybody he might have missed, fortuantly he didn't look up.  
  
I settled on a tree branch to watch.  
  
Come to think of it his eyes had swept across the sky a couple of times, fortuantly he hadn't seen me. Or had he? Come to think of it, he had almost seemed careful NOT to look at me the whole way.  
  
Nah, that was stupid, I was just being paranoid. Wasn't I? The others were being shoved into the cars, he looked around, neatly avoiding my gaze.  
  
'Oh stop it!' I mentally berated myself, 'you're just a bird in the forest, he isn't checking you out!'  
  
'Yes but you're not on Earth anymore, are you?' A more cynical part of my mind piped up. And in the two seconds I was distracted thinking that over Entragian shot up the tree like a rocket and wrapped one huge, baseball glove sized hand around me.  
  
He brought me down from the tree, me squawking and flapping, him just as calm as ever, as he carried me he paused for a few, no doubt feeling even calmer, perhaps a little sleepy, but he shook it off and kept walking.  
  
And now I had the DNA of a giant lizard named Collie Entragian swimming around in my blood stream.  
  
Chapter Seven: Marco  
  
I was unceremoniously shoved into the backseat of the strange alien police-car with Jake and Jeanne, fighting the urge to say that I could smell bacon.  
  
"Well fancy meeting you two here!" I exclaimed sarcastically bright.  
  
"This is not good." Jeanne said, give the lady a prize for stating the obvious.  
  
"Could be worse," Jake told her, then lower, in a conspirators tone, "at least Tobias wasn't caught."  
  
Entragian opened the passenger side door and climbed in holding a rather irritated hawk.  
  
Sorry guys. Tobias apologised as Entragian opened the screen that seperated the front and back of the car and shoved him through.  
  
"Damnit Collie! What is that thing?" The Kelbrid at the wheel asked Entragian.  
  
"I dunno, it was following us all through the forest, it's with them nothing surer." Entragian replied.  
  
"See Jeanne, now things are worse." I told Jeanne, "Jake jinxed us."  
  
The hover-car lifted off the ground, the second hover-car behind us that held Santorelli, Menderash and the other four Kelbrid did the same and both shot off towards a city I could now see, off in the distance.  
  
The city was made up of great silvery towers that all end in spikes that ripped at the sky.  
  
As I squinted through the cars windscreen towards the distant city buildings I noticed that a pair of fuzzy dice hung on an elastic string from the rear vision mirror.  
  
I slumped into the seat, "Perfect," I muttered, "just perfect."  
  
Chapter Eight: Jake  
  
"This is, how-you-say, bull-shit." Jeanne stated, sounding resigned, her flinting French accent making the last two words sound like 'bool-sheet.'  
  
We had been brought into the city and taken to what was apparently the police station, a large building made of what looked like sand-stone and silver.  
  
Then were stuck into this one big cell, very traditional-looking actually, concrete floors, bars everywhere, not exactly homely.  
  
"Wow." Marco marveled, "you even make swearing sound sexy."  
  
Jeanne turned to him "Shut up Marco." She didn't sound like she was in the mood to exchange banter.  
  
There were five cells lined up against the wall, the other four were empty, we had all been shoved into the one biggest cell.  
  
A guard sat at his desk just across from us, giving us the occasional, casual glance. He leaned back on his chair with taloned feet propped up on his desk, an even bigger version of the monster handguns Entragian's crew had carried sat next to one clawed foot. The guard's attention was focased on a magazine which sure looked like a Kelbrid 'Mad Magazine' to me, I guess it was a slow day.  
  
He had treated us with indifference ever since we'd arrived, which was good for us, his disinterest would lead to our escape.  
  
Marco, Santorelli, Jeanne, Menderash and I were all lined up against the cell's barred wall, neatly blocking the guards view of the cell while a strange melding of bird and huge lizard writhed behind us.  
  
Okay guy's I'm done. Tobias told us in private thought speak. We all moved aside and he jumped up, now a pefect copy of a Kelbrid named Collie.  
  
"You! Guard! Get over here!" Tobias yelled out in Entragian's deep gravelly voice.  
  
The Kelbrid guard jumped to his feet immediately, strange grinning lizard face now registering complete shock. "Entragian sir? What the hell are you doing in there?"  
  
"Get over and get me out!" Tobias demanded.  
  
The guard practically fell over himself in his rush to get to the cell, he pulled out a card from a pocket in his belt and stuck it in a slot, opening the cell door, Tobias got out and the guard shut the door.  
  
"Hey buddy?" Tobias said to the guard.  
  
"Sir?" Asked the guard and was immediantly hit four times around the head by Tobias's now very fast and powerful fists. The guard crumpled, unconscious, before he could realise that letting anything out of a cell which held unknow alien prisoners was a bad idea, no matter what they looked like.  
  
Tobias let us out using the key-card, "Okay everyone except Tobias and Menderash, first acquire the DNA of that guard, it could come in useful. Then go into battle morphs." I ordered. "Look out for Menderash, I expect we may be getting a little company soon."  
  
Marco, Jeanne and Santorelli acquired the guard and began to morph for battle, "why company professor?" He asked me as he started morphing lion, a morph I didn't like much it reminded me of both David and the fate of the new Animorphs but I never told him that, physically it was a good choice.  
  
"Security cameras, look." I gestured with a hand that was rapidly becoming a paw towards a camera poking out from one corner. Tobias, grab the guards gun. I was far enough into the morph now to use thought speak, I was going tiger, morphing my trusty compadre of many battles against.  
  
The clothes I was wearing were in the process of getting shredded, fortuantly it was traditional practice for us to wear our suits under our clothing, specially designed for comfort and durability, they weren't exactely super hero costumes but they could pass for clothing, Marco had finally gotten his wish for a decent thing to wear for morphing.  
  
I was now a full-grown male Siberian tiger, ten feet long, seven hundred pounds of deadly speed and power, Marco had gone for his gorilla morph, just like the old days, he turned to the camera I had pointed out earlier and flipped it the bird.  
  
Animorphs TV is off the air, he told it and then punched the camera with one canned-ham fist, leaving a good-sized hole where it used to be, then he turned to me, you know if only that was true in the real world, it would be a much happier place.  
  
Jeanne, now an enormous, fifteen hundred pound polar bear, she reared up, ten feet tall and caused the door of the room to blow outwards with one casual swipe of her paw.  
  
Okay guys, let's move out. I told them and Jeanne exited making the doorway much bigger than it used to be closely followed by the rest of us.  
  
The hallway we came into was huge, not really a hallway at all but a big circular area with doors all around it and a big doorway to my left which lead into a big hallway.  
  
It was also completely and unexpectedly empty.  
  
Where to big Jake? Marco asked me but I had focased on something else a tromping sound.  
  
I've got a real bad feeling about this. Tobias confided with us all, he to could hear the sound I guess.  
  
I knew what the sound was, the slapping of taloned feet against the floor as they ran, alot of taloned feet.  
  
Then from our left where the hallway was Kelbrid exploded out, two dozen at least.  
  
Marco said something to Jeanne I didn't quite catch and the two charged for the Kelbrid group followed by Santorelli, purely by instinct Tobias and I ran after them.  
  
Half the Kelbrid likewise charged, the other half stayed back and fired at us with their giant side-arms. Menderash was lost in the confusion. It was one hell of a battle.  
  
I leapt at one charging Kelbrid, he threw a punch, we both connected, it felt like he'd hit me in the face with a metal baseball bat but my momentum knocked him to the ground, we wrestled for a bit, him punching with magnificent power, I managed to bite his throat and then back-handed him with one frying-pan sized paw, he stayed down.  
  
I jumped back up, the fight was on.  
  
Chapter Nine: Marco  
  
I stood, staring at the group of more than two dozen pissed-off Kelbrids. "I'll take the four hundred on the left." I told Jeanne, half-serious, she got the message and nodded her shaggy polar bear head, we charged, I saw Santorelli's lion morph run after us from the corner of my eye.  
  
Half the Kelbrid came at us and the battle was on, I exchaged many blows with them, most standing about 6 and a half feet I guess, mean, growling and tough as nails but i was coming out on top   
  
I saw Jake's tiger scuffling with one Kelbrid, he swiped it and it stayed down, he pounced at another.  
  
I knocked out one of my dancing partners and then Entragian stood before me, his monster gun was in the holster but he did not draw it, he wanted to go one on one with me, I culd tell from his cocky stance, two other Kelbrid backed away, he was at least a foot taller than them both.  
  
I threw a punch with one giant fist, he blocked it. I threw another, he blocked it. I tried punching him from different angles at once, no good, he just blocked them and grinned, he was much faster than the other Kelbrid I had fought so far.  
  
"My turn?" He asked, amused, and he threw three punches in quick succesion, I didn't even see them coming, he was alot stronger too, I felt like someone had hit me in the face with a sledge hammer, my gorilla muzzle was broken, I spat out some bloody, broken teeth.  
  
He swung one powerful fist into my stomach, it forced every breath of air in my lungs out, but I sucked it up and came back with a ferocious upper-cut, this time I connected, his head snapped back and he stumbled away momentarily.  
  
Entragian recovered quickly, he started to come back at me but Santorelli pounced at him, the lion morph flew through the air towards the Kelbrid.  
  
But Entragian was once again to quick, deftly he side-stepped Santorelli and threw out a punch that I guessed would easily kill a human.  
  
Santorelli's lion hit the floor on it's side, thrown off course by Entragian's punch, he climbed shakily to his feet, looking dazed.  
  
Entragian started towards Santorelli, I lumbered up behind him and tried to grab him in a bear hug but he knew I was there and elbowed me in the chest then brought round his right hand like he was going to slap me and I saw his claws kind of grow from his fingers, well at least the finger skin went back and the claws were fully unsheathed, black and glossy, they scrached at my face.  
  
Half my face must have come off, blood spurted, the pain was intense. I hit the floor, hard. Entragian turned back to Santorelli, Santorelli roared loud enough to make a grown man wet himself, than Entragian ran at him, roaring just as loudly.  
  
Blood still gushed from the left hand side of my face, I felt my mind slipping away. We were better off in the cell. I moaned before it all turned back.  
  
~to be continued.~  
  
Britz-I'll be back lickety split with the next chapter, write me a review and start waiting! 


	4. It All Goes To Hell

Britz-Okay I havn't been lickety-split as promised but thanks to the ENORMUS demand for a forth chapter (with a total of zero reviews for the third chapter, gag me with a spoon.) I'm back. I can't blame you for not reviewing the last one, it both sucked and blowed (yeah, I know, you didn't think it was possible?) but come on, R&R this one I'm begging you.  
  
~The Continuation of The Continuation of The Continued, Continued!~  
~~~~~~(Sorry I couldn't help myself, please don't leave.)~~~~~~  
  
Chapter Ten: Jake  
  
Marco! Demorph! I yelled as I saw him collapse, he didn't seem to react, he looked unconscious, at least I hoped he was.  
  
The Kelbrid that had swiped him down was none other than Entragian, who was now stalking towards Santorelli's lion morph. I ran towards him but was tackled around the mid-section by a Kelbrid, he tried to pin me to the ground and another Kelbrid came and started clawing at my face.  
  
I roared in pain and anger, I threw out one paw and knocked away the Kelbrid who had ripped at my face, I started after Entragian again but the Kelbrid who had tackled me was sinking his teeth into my back, that permanent smile made one hell of a nasty weapon, I'll be damned if he wasn't about to sever my spinal cord.  
  
The situation was just plain bad.  
  
It was a bad situation.  
  
It was just one really bad, undiluted, pure-beef, 100% shitty situation.  
  
And then it got worse.  
  
Chapter Eleven: Tobias  
  
I jabbed, I swung, I put my left fist in, I pulled my left fist out, I did the Hokey-Pokey and whooped some Kelbrid ass.  
  
Entragian was one hell of a morph, the closest I could comparison I could come to for the easy-going kind of power I felt was the polar bear I'd morphed, no he wasn't actually that strong but both of them carried themselves with the knowledge of being the head honcho, the big cheese, top of the pops, the toughest, strongest predator of their enviroment.  
  
I guessed Entragian was like the Alpha male of a wolf pack, it felt like it, only difference I could see with what I felt like as Entragian and what Jake had probaly felt as the Pack leader when he morphed wolf was that I didn't feel the urge to howl and piss everywhere.  
  
Hell I was almost having fun, but then the whole damn thing went to hell, well that is to say, it got worse.  
  
There was six Kelbrid who now hung back and fired at us, there had been more before but I guessed they had come and joined the fist fight.  
  
Anyway the ones that had run into the fight probably counted themselves lucky because all of a sudden the six that had been firing were cut down from behind, sliced in half and disintegrated by Dracon beams, that wasn't a good thing.  
  
A platoon of Hork-Bajir came stomping around the corner firing evey which way into the battle, Animorphs and Kelbrid alike just stopped fighting, froze in place. The beams cut through the crowd, four Kelbrid that had been trying to take Jeanne's Polar bear morph down were hit and burned, Jeanne herself was hit twice and went down, she was still alive, barely.  
  
A Kelbrid which moments ago had been biting into Jake's back was cut down while trying to run away.  
  
Another Kelbrid who only seconds ago had been attacking me with all his might now diverted his attention to the Hork-Bajir that were firing at us. It pulled a side-arm from it's holster and shakily aimed the gun but was sliced in half by a Dracon beam, he died with a look of complete confusion on his face.  
  
The Kelbrid's body fell to the ground and I grabbed at the gun he was holding in his clawed hand but before I could do anything of any use I was hit by another Dracon beam, a glancing blow, all of a sudden my left arm was just gone.   
  
I couldn't feel any pain from the missing arm, yet, guess I was still in shock, very confusing. The shooting from the Hork-Bajir suddenly let up, I turned to them and saw 'The One' in all his mutant Andalite glory march around the corner.  
  
The pain from my left side reached my brain and I fell over. Still clutching the side arm.  
  
Shit.  
  
Chapter Twelve: Marco  
  
"Marco, wake up man." Something patted against my face, or muzzle, or whatever a gorilla's face is called.  
  
Great, for the second time today someone was insisting I wake up when I had obviously died already, didn't anyone respect the dead anymore?  
  
"Marco, get up, you've got to demorph, and 'THE ONE' is here." That woke me up for sure, you could even hear the capital letters in Jake's voice.  
  
My head was killing me, I raised one hand to rub my forehead and was a little confused at first, then I remembered, I was still in gorilla morph, thank God for a second there I thought that all that hair was puberty kicking in late, in a weird and inventive way.  
  
I started to demorph, all the others were standing around, demorphed, except Tobias, where was Tobias?  
  
'The One' strutted over, still in the form of Ax, but then not really Ax, this was the Ax-man on steroids. "Hellooo Marco" It drawled with that ugly toothed mouth.  
  
I was nearly fully demorphed now, "Hellloooo, Neuman." I drawled back, confusion flicked in The One's stolen Andalite eye's, I saw Jeanne standing nearby, hiding a smile, so they did get 'Seinfeld' in France?  
  
I meant what I said that this was Ax on steroids, it seems the mouth wasn't the only new addition since The One took up residence. If Ax's lower body used to be about the size of a deers, well not anymore, now it was the size a friggen Clydesdale, minus the head of course.  
  
His torso and arms were no longer delicate looking, he was friggen the Hulk Hogan of Andalites now, without the man-boobs though, muscle on muscle, I never thought I'd say it but, the Ax-man was cut.  
  
The tail blade was the same though, bigger so it now fit The One's bad-ass form proportionally but it still looked the same, guess it was already dangerous enough.  
  
He turned back to Jake "You know Jake the Yeerk-Killer..."  
  
"Oh there's no need to use my full title" Jake interrupted, his delievery was serious but I think he was trying not to smile.  
  
"Don't interrupt me!" Anger flashed through The One's eyes, "Jake, you forced me and my crew into an emergency landing through you're actions, my ship needs many repairs, what punishment do you think is suitable for attacking my ship like that?"  
  
"You know our ship didn't end up so good either." I said, and thought about what remained of 'The Rachel', a battered, burned part of the hulk, that was all "I think you might have scratched the paint."  
  
The One seemed a little pissed, he grabbed me around the neck and hurled me up, my feet dangled in the air, wow, just like in the movies. "Don't you ever shut up!?" He shouted, spittle flying from that red rimmed jaw.  
  
I thought about that for a second and choked out, "Dude, you, spit on me." I got the pleasure of seeing the confusion flash through his eyes again but it was replaced with anger to quickly for my liking.  
  
"Still you mock me!" He pushed with his arm, like shoving in mid air, I went flying, then ended up skidding across the floor, very confusing but mostly painful. "I'm going to kill you very painfully!" He told me, boy, well if he wasn't Mr Crabapple McNasty today.  
  
The One stalked towards me, I thought of something to say to him, just two words in fact but before I could say them it was said for me.  
  
A Kelbrid lying not to far away from me climbed shakilly to it's feet, it's left arm was missing with burns all along the left side, hang on a second, it was Entragian, or was it Tobias? He'd morphed Entragian after all, "Hey 'One' or whoever the hell you are," He pointed a gun at The One, sighting down his remaining arm.  
  
"Fuck you." Yep those were the words I was thinking.  
  
~to be continued~   
  
Britz-Now write a bloody review, come on pleeease? Be a responsible reader anfd leave a review. (that is what it say down there right?)  



	5. Last Action Hero

Britz-Woah, did I take a while or what, had a little writers block I'm afraid, but I'm back bay-bee.   
  
~The Continuation of The Continuing of The. . .Ahh, I've lost count.~   
  
Chaper Thirteen: Tobias   
  
Oh man where the hell was I? My left arm was giving me hell that's for sure. Oh hang on a second, I didn't have a left arm at the moment, well there's your reason for the pain.   
  
I opened my eye and didn't like what I saw, Jake, Jeanne and Santorelli were lined up with at least eight Kelbrid, being watched over by a friggen platoon of Hork-Bajir and 'The One', in Ax's body only now it was transformed into an Andalite mountain of muscle was holding up Marco by the neck, I'd put twenty bucks that he was in that position because he couldn't keep his mouth shut, as if to prove me right he said something I couldn't quite hear and 'The One' threw him across the floor in anger.   
  
The One was stomping after Marco and I stumbled drunkily to my feet "Hey 'One' or whoever the hell you are," I pointed the gun I was still clutching in a death grip right at his chest.   
  
If I'd have the dry, cool wit of an action hero I'd probably think of something clever to say here, but I couldn't so I just said the first thing that came to mind: "Fuck you." and then I let loose with the gun, pulling the trigger again and again.   
  
Light like the stuff that shot out the end of a Dracon beam lanced out of the muzzle of my gun, only the beam was more concentrated, like a laser from 'Star Wars' I'm sorry to say, as a Trekkie, I did not approve.   
  
Chapter Fourteen: Marco   
  
The lasers or whatever they were from Tobias/Entragian's gun hit 'The One' right in the middle of his bulked-up package of an Andalite chest, he didn't collapse but stumbled backwards, the wacked-out Andalie face looked confused and shocked.   
  
But that wasn't the weirdest part, when Tobias or Entragian stopped firing there was a mundo big hole in The One's chest dripping a little slime strangly enough and the stolen Andalite form started to deflate, thats right, all the muscle and general bad-ass-ness was melting into the direstion of the hole.   
  
And then freaky beyond freaky an arm slimed it's way out of the hole, a weird clawed scaly arm, looked like something that belong in a 'Jurassic Park' movie, creepy. Ax's body fell to it's knees when that arm popped out.   
  
I saw Jake wispering something to the Kelbrid standing beside, why if it wasn't Entragian, or was it Tobias? Oh bugger it all to hell.   
  
I looked back to the 'Entragian' who had fired, he'd fallen to the ground and was now morphing, well that settles the arguement of which Entragian was which.   
  
I started to morph gorilla, now was our chance, I looked to Jake and he nodded, then sprouted fangs, yeah battle time, oh the glorious life of an Animorph.   
  
Chapter Fifteen: Jake   
  
The One was deflating in a very odd way, like a balloon going down, I looked to Entragian who was standing next to me in the line the Hork-Bajir had herded us into, "Entragian, here's our chance, if we attack now we can get them." I said, Entragian nodded.   
  
I turned to Jeanne and Santorelli, they were already morphing then Marco looked to me and I nodded towards him, then I felt the fangs grow in my mouth, fur rippled down my arms, I was going tiger, again.   
  
"Guyika! Darookie! Holy shit!" A Hork-Bajir controller noticed us and yelled in a strange mix of english and his own alien language, the other controllers turned away from The One to us, the fight was on.   
  
Unfortuantly the others and I were all in mid-morph but the Kelbrid struck out first, a Kelbrid at the end punched a Hork-Bajir in the beak-like mouth, the snake-like head snapped back and the Kelbrid kicked him in the stomach with a taloned foot.   
  
Entragian fought with an easy yet powerful grace, his tail whipped around and tripped one Hork-Bajir then he grabbed another by the face, pushing out his cheeks like some cliche TV grandmother commenting on how big the kid had gotten, then Entragian snapped the Hork-Bajir's neck with an almost casual flick of his wrist, the break rang out like the crack of a whip.   
  
Now I was ready to join the fight, I was a mean, lean, feline machine.   
  
I surveyed the fight and almost let out a very un-tigerish yelp, The One was fully healed! Large as life and twice as ugly it's stolen Andalite form traded blows with Marco's gorilla morph, and it was winning, thankfully it wasn't using that tail that I had many times been glad I wasn't on the receiving end of, Marco was still bruised and battered but he was still all in one piece.   
  
I ran in The One's direction and then leapt through the air towards him.   
  
~To Be Continued.~   
  
Britz-I know this one was kinda short but I'll write another soon enough I suppose, give me a break it is MAJOR test time afterall, ciao, and remember to review! 


	6. Clash Of The Titans

Britz-I'm really really REALLY sorry I took so long to write this, writers block truly is a hideous deterrent. And by the way, because of some weird thing thought-speak is now in [ ]'s (*'s looked like shit)  
  
~The Finally Continued, Continued~  
  
Chapter Sixteen: Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill  
  
A wise human once said that 'a mind is a terrible thing to waste.'  
  
Well this is obviously true, but as I'd discovered it was far more terrible place to be stuck in. Sure you might think being stuck with no one but your own brain for company might be a wonderful journey of self-discovery, well it wasn't, when it came down to brown trousers time your frontal lobe is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.  
  
My situation now was even worse than being a controller, which I had also been, albeit for only a few minutes by a friendly Yeerk, but I got the general gist of it, yeah this was worse.  
  
At least as a controller you could see and hear what was going on, you could converse with the Yeerk in your head, probably not very in-depth conversations, but someone to talk to all the same, and when you were a controller you still did get that precious 20 minutes of freedom every three days, okay admittedly a still-stuck-in-a-cage kind of freedom, but freedom none the less.   
  
But nope when Tak moved into your body, you were kicked into the very darkest corner of your own mind and left there unless Tak choose differently, oh right, I should mention Tak is his real name, although he calls himself 'The One' with those idiotic controllers, claiming to be some kind of god, he feed them bullshit on a spoon and they lapped it up.  
  
But as little of Tak's mind that I could see into I knew the truth within his existence, he was a scientific mistake, a genetically-engineered parasite, just one of many other attempts to create a parasitic super-warrior so that a bunch of very powerful but basically stupid people could go kick the shit out of an equally powerfully and stupid race over a generally stupid disagreement.  
  
I swear no matter how far in a space you get or how advanced a race becomes some things never change.   
  
When Tak was created, the bubbly came out, the pants went down and other celebrating methods were employed, the experiment had it's big success at long last, that's what they thought at least, sure Tak possessed the ability to take control of the bodies of others, make them stronger, faster, meaner at will and use the aforementioned bodies as weapons against their unquestionable enemies the Joutlies, enemies who threatened their entire existence. Although no one could quite remember why.  
  
But there was a huge problem with Tak, a monumental one, Tak was smart.  
  
Not only that he was shrewd, he was cunning and he was a mean-ass sonofabitch, so when the shit hit the fan, it hit it hard and fast.   
  
He escaped of course, as the Chaos Theory, horror and sci-fi move lore, and the law of bloody common sense should all have undoubtedly dictated.  
  
He escaped, he killed anyone who got in his way and released all of the twisted monstrosities that had been created by the lab before his arrival, and then the real fun began.  
  
He and all the creatures who escaped the lab with him went on a planet-wide killing spree, he took over many different bodies and killed thousands, martial law was declared, entire towns and cities were burned away in an attempt to stop him, groups of an elite special forces designed for the specific purpose of destroying him and his cronies gunned down hundreds of innocent people in areas where he'd been spotted just to try and kill Tak, all to no avail.  
  
When the final twisted creature born of genetic science was run down and shot like a rabid dog Tak was not amongst the dead.  
  
He had jumped ship, or rather planet, long ago. Taken over the body of a refugee and hopped aboard a ship headed as far from the planet as they could get, in one of life's many bitter ironies they had fled their homes more afraid of being slaughtered by their own government than of Tak himself, and yet the deaths of all onboard were brought about by the very thing which caused the governments actions.  
  
Now there was an irony even Marco could not have found humour in.  
  
Anyhow after all that took place he started living by jumping from ship to ship, taking over bodies and using them to play the parts that amused him at the time, a crazy refugee, a crewmate who'd acquired superpowers or even a vicious blood-god called 'The One' in the case of taking the Yeerk Blade ship, he took the ship, jumped from controller to controller driving them all, to use a human term, fuckin' bazoo, and then played god to their ruined minds.  
  
Of course that was all just one big history lesson into Tak's past, what really mattered was the here and now cause for some reason Tak's presence in my mind was slipping away, I regained control of my eyes and looked out.  
  
Well I'd been shot, how about that.  
  
The creature that'd shot me stood not far away, a one-armed giant lizard, Kelbrid? Perhaps. And as odd as it sounded, he'd really done me a favour by shooting me, I could feel Tak leaking away, the hideous mouth that he'd created on my face shrunk away into nothingness, you'd have thought I'd grown attached to it but I was rather glad to see it go, personally I'd always thought the no mouth thing made us Andalite's look some-what suave.  
  
I reached out with my mind, grabbing what body parts I could once Tak's influence had left them, my stalk eyes, my tail, and like any other guy would, my genitalis, which by the way, you could not even contemplate using on a human, no matter how much weirdo slash writers would like to.  
  
I grapped them in my mental grip and vowed not to let go, I had an ominous feeling that Tak would be coming back soon enough. The hole in my chest was now huge, I watched with my stalk eyes and an arm came out, Tak's arm! His physical presence was actually leaving me, I felt a ray of hope, maybe he was actually leaving fully, into his own physical form where I could kill him, maybe he was already dead!  
  
[Not bloody likely] said a voice in my mind, not thought-speak exactly but it sounded like it, Tak had not talked to me many times, only to laugh at me, to mock me once my body was taken from me.  
  
Tak's voice was very confusing, it was like everyone I'd ever known saying the same thing at the exact same time in all different tones of voice, it did not sound evil, nor cruel or all-powerful, it sounded like nothing real, like the be-all and end-all, if a voice could drive you insane by a word, it would be Tak's.  
  
The hole was shrinking, the muscle was coming back, the size, there was a twitch where that red rimmed mouth had been and apparently would be once again, Tak's arm, that was still sticking out the rapidly shrinking hole flapped around like a dying fish for a moment before gripping my expanding chest, then it melted in, the mouth burst out of my face.  
  
[No! No no no!] I yelled, I remembered the body parts I'd claimed when Tak's influence had left them, he was seeping back so I held them in my mental grip as tight as possible, I felt what was like physic tendrils touch at my tails, my stalk eyes and recoil. Then the tendrils attacked at the parts, prying at my hold, in order to protect my hold on my stalk eyes and tail I had sacrificed the hold on my genitals, there probably wouldn't be an opportunity to use them anytime soon anyway.  
  
His psyche retreated, I looked out my stalk eyes and saw that it's was because there were more important things for him to attend to, it was Marco in gorilla morph, he was knuckle walking towards me, or rather 'us', as fast as he could, moments later we were punching back and forth, it was not a battle Marco could win, Tak was too strong, Marco was just lucky I held my grip on the tail.  
  
Then something hit my tail, best guess it actually hit my whole backend but I could only feel through the tail, I looked through the stalk eyes, it was Jake, I'd recognise that tiger anywhere, he was swiping, leaping and tackling Tak every which way, and Marco was still beating away, I actually felt Tak's indecision, he didn't know who to go for, they might actually take him down!  
  
They fought and fought but then so did Tak, but he was greatly distracted by it all, I used the parts of me I had already claimed and pushed with every once of mental energy I could muster.  
  
I took Tak completely by surprise, our minds crashed together, feeling your mind shoving against the mind of another creature is an extraordinarily weird feeling and one I'd never want to repeat.  
  
My tail blade went nuts, whipping around in a furious spectacle, It stuck into Tak and I's unfairly shared chest and dug an enormous furrow.  
  
The fight for control was on.  
  
Chapter Seventeen: Marco  
  
I knew I couldn't win.  
  
The One was kicking my sorry ass, he was far stronger than my gorilla morph, I was barely making a mark, lucky he wasn't using that Andalite tail or I'd be a lot worse off that just battered.  
  
Jake joined in and suddenly things improved greatly, I don't think on a one-on-one basis Jake was doing any better than I had but now that both of us were attacking The One was to slow to hit both the of us, but tried constantly and therefore missed us both.  
  
Suddenly he just went nuts, he stopped with a great shudder for a couple of seconds and his tail blade went crazy, whipping all over the place, Jake and I were very close to being decapitated and we retreated, wondering what the hell was going on.  
  
The blade stabbed into The One's chest and dug in, once it came out it was still, tense and quivering, no blood came from the hole but it was like something shifted inside it, I could swear I could see a blood red eye look out for just a second and then it was gone.  
  
Something was seriously wrong with The One, he stumbled one way then stopped, shuddered and stumbled the other way, was suddenly aware that the battle was over, the Hork-Bajir had all been taken down and only The One remained, all eyes watched The One with deathly silence.  
  
What came then reminded me of 'The Nutty Professor' as odd as it sounds, that was once I realised what was going on, The One and Ax were battling for control of Ax's body, and looking just like that scene where professor Clump and Buddy Love had battled it out for control at the end of the movie.  
  
"This body is mine!" roared The One "you cannot take it from me!"  
  
Then the mouth shrunk until it nearly disappeared, muscle sort of flopped [It is mine Tak, I will defeat you!] Yelled a familiar thought-speak, who was Tak? The One?  
  
The mouth grew again, muscle hardened, "you are nothing!"  
  
[Get out of my body!]  
  
"You cannot defeat me!"  
  
This was absolutely insane, I wondered why no one was stopping it but then realised that I wasn't doing anything either, I felt rooted in place.  
  
But then the mouth grew and stayed after a brief flicker, muscles swelled and I knew that The One had won, Ax's tail blade moved for the throat, apparently with great effort but it quickly flicked away as The One regained full control, it had been Ax's attempt at one final act I guess.  
  
The One roared laughter, "I am unstoppable!" He cried.  
  
"Hey buddy" yelled a familiar gravely voice I looked over to Entragian, he stood next to a machine that looked like the crossbred of a golf cart and a tank, another Kelbrid sat behind the controls, Entragians grin looked wider than ever "lets just see about that huh?"  
  
The barrel of the mini-tank levelled itself at The One "Oh sh.." he managed to squeak before an enormous streak of red light exploded from the barrel.  
  
*To be continued, hopefully faster than this time huh?*  
  
Britz-Okay I'm am really sorry about how late this is, that is if anyone even bothers to read this and not ignore it out of spite. 


	7. Tak Gets Whacked

Britz-Hey y'all, lets all hope that I can write this S.O.B faster than the last one eh?   
  
Disclaimer-You know the deal, though should pop in the name 'Tak' is also from Desperation by Stephen King, although anyone that has read the book will think I'm b.s.ing I swear I came up with The One/Tak's abilities BEFORE I thought of the name Tak and then realised I how similar the abilities were, really, I swear on this Bible, okay so it's really a 'The Sims' instruction booklet, so sue me.  
  
~The Continuing Continued~  
(I've really, really got to stop saying that)  
  
Chapter Eighteen: Tobias  
  
"Oh sh.." The One said and the enormous beam of red light blasted across the room, I was fully hawk now and despite being far away from the laser path I felt the roll of heat from it's wake, it was so hot I think it singed my feathers from across the room.  
  
The beam hit The One right in his washboard abs and engulfed him; it looked like something from a bad Japanese cartoon  
  
There was a roaring explosion and I was blinded by the light, once I could see again there was still the explosion image super-imposed over everything I saw, a blinding ball of red light with a vague Andalite shape in the middle.  
  
I saw where the laser must have eventually hit, it was a small room, looking like a office in any normal office building that had been hit by a tornado, then a flash fire and finally a nuclear explosion, it was nothing more than a burned-out shell of a room coated fairly liberally with what could only be accurately described as goop.  
  
[Holy hell] I heard myself say [is that Ax?]  
  
[No, that's Tak] said a very creaky thought-speak voice, I turned to the source of it was a battered burned and still unmistakable Andalite [this is Ax] he said needlessly, pointing to himself.   
  
[Ax!] Jake nearly screamed [are you alright?]  
  
Ax sounded like a teenager whose voice is still breaking, [so...So] and he collapsed, we all rushed over, I noticed that Menderash had joined us once more, he was bleeding from the nose but seemed otherwise okay.  
  
[Ax, that really you?] [Are you okay?] [Get up!] We yelled at different intervals  
  
[Can't...Dead] He replied.  
  
[Then how are you talking?] Marco asked with a roll of his gorilla eyes.  
  
[Point...Well.... Taken...]  
  
[Are you okay Ax?] I asked.  
  
[Hurt like...Hell...Can't...Stand up.... Or....Talk at normal....Pace...] He looked up at me and smiled with his eyes [it's the...Greatest feeling..In the world.]   
  
[He's alive!] I yelled to the rest of the room, I think I expected a resounding cheer but all I got was a few mumbles wondering what in Hell's name was going on, well after all how could they know this was the real Ax, not the evil Ax, or rather not the evil Ax cause it was really the real Ax infected by, uhh, what was I saying, I didn't know what the Hell was going on myself.  
  
[Laser burned away Tak...Left me alive....What a rush] Ax said.  
  
[Well there you have, case closed, Ax is alive and Tak or whoever is dead] Marco piped up.  
  
[Tak is..Gone, alright...But I doubt he's....Dead...] Ax stuttered.  
  
There were several beats of silence and Jake, Marco, Jeanne, Santorelli and I collectively said [eh?]  
  
[He's a real..Survivor that Tak.] Ax said.  
  
Several more beats of silence came and went, civilisations rose and fell in those beats, suns formed and died in them and it was only broken when a rasping voice said.  
  
"Gee Aximili, guess you know me better than I thought."  
  
Chapter Nineteen: Marco  
  
The voice torn through the silence and we all turned in perfect unison, with the burnt out office behind him was the creature we now all knew as Tak in what I guess was his true form.  
  
At first I thought he was floating but then I saw he had a set of wings, similar to those of a dragonfly on his back, beating so fast they were nothing but a blur.  
  
He wasn't very big, I guess fighting the Yeerks for years should have taught me that evil things aren't always big but still it came as sort of a surprise that Tak was actually no bigger than Tobias in hawk form. He looked lizard-like, the arm I'd seen pop out of Ax's chest was his own physical one, they looked like raptor arms only smaller, although not quite small enough to fit the body correctly, they seemed to move alright but were too long judging from human standards, of course I was in gorilla morph with my knuckles dragging on the ground, who was I to talk?  
  
Tak had no legs, just a short tail. The face was the weirdest thing, It looked vaguely like a clawed hand, not something that could evolve in true nature but I could swear I'd seen it before somewhere...Of course! He looked like those spider things in 'Abe's Odyssey'! I'd played endless hours of that game while we were braving new frontiers and all that looking for Ax  
  
"Yes, as you can see I am indeed very hard to kill, many better than you have tried before and I'm always I'm the one left standing, all you've done now" he narrowed his blood-red eyes "is piss me off." It suddenly occurred to me that his evil rasping voice sounded very familiar.  
  
It clicked and I spoke up [Hey Tak, anyone ever tell you, you sound like Clint Eastwood?] His eyes narrowed even more and I doubted anyone ever had.  
  
"My voice has more has more often described as that of pure hatred, of absolute evil, of the voice of anything that has ever spawned from the shadows so as to create pain and destruction where ever it went"  
  
I considered this [No, I still say more like an evil Clint Eastwood.]  
  
Tak hissed, high and raspy, like a cat, "I will take great pleasure in your death, it will be slow and exquisitely painful"  
  
[Quit pissing him off!] Jake yelled at me in private thought-speak.  
  
[Big talk for an overgrown bug] I shot back at Tak; lets just say I couldn't help it.  
  
Tak sneered, at least I think that's what he did, it was kind of hard to tell with all those finger things coming out of his face "Why don't we see how funny you are when I break your mind in half."  
  
And rather than wait for me to come up with a no doubt painfully witty comeback Tak shot through the air. Straight. At. Me.  
  
I acted purely on instinct, I tried to swat him. I grabbed him only to realise that was exactly what he wanted. His strange hand-like mouthpiece dug into the skin of my gorilla palm and he was suddenly sinking into my arm. The pain was incredibly intense and cantered on that one spot.  
  
Underneath my skin I felt his hand-like face moving, then the strangest feeling, it was like he was shrinking, but as he did he was spreading out, does that make sense? I guess not and then I realised what was happening, he was melting, he was melting into the flesh of my arm, becoming part of me.  
  
[Get him out!] I screamed [get the sonofabitch outta me!] I swung madly towards the others, holding my arm out straight; with my lack of rational thought I think I was just trying to get as far away from the Tak-infected limb as possible.  
  
He was moving up the arm, moving fast, my muscles contracted and then bulged cartoonishly large, railroad spike claws had now unsheathed from my gorilla fingers, this is what he did to Ax, I thought, made his body stronger, meaner, tough as nails, his fixing it up so he can move in permanently.  
  
I stared in horror as I could feel Tak moving through my arm, almost to the shoulder when suddenly the offending limb was no longer there, Tak's influence was gone, before I had a chance to wonder why a haemorrhaging spurt of blood answered it for me, I turned away from where my arm used to be, everything felt like it was in slow motion, yes, there was Ax, standing up, tail poised at the ready, he'd cut off my arm and saved me.  
  
[Marco demorph!]   
  
Chapter Twenty: Jake  
  
[Marco demorph!] I yelled, as I stared at the still wriggling gorilla arm, muscles bunched and contracted, Tak was still moving in there, wondering what was going on, Marco had stumbled away from the arm and collapsed, but he was still moving, now demorphing.  
  
Then arm stopped wiggling, I could swear I heard a hiss of annoyance, muffled by the flesh and the arm began to swell.  
  
Well all backed away, the arm swelled larger, now looking like a misshaped arm balloon inflated to far, the hand clenched so hard rivulets of blood ran from the fist, then the arm exploded.  
  
Gore flew through the air, blood, fur and heavier, wetter things. Tak was once again in physical form, he held an arm bone in his claws and screeched, a high and terrible scream like fingernails on a chalkboard magnified a hundredfold.  
  
But then we've stood through the sounds that gave the Howlers their infamous name, we stood our ground and Tak took to the air again, zipping past Ax then coming back, he flew past Menderash, tripping him, and attacked Jeanne, flying around her to fast for the eye to follow, toppling her with her own blind panic.  
  
The he disappeared, well not literally but he flew around so fast it was a spiral of complete confusion and then buzzed off to fast for us to react.  
  
"Where did he go?" Menderash wondered out loud.  
  
"He's over here" croaked a Kelbrid voice, I turned to it just in time to see the last nub of Tak's tail disappear into a Kelbrid's stomach, "He's inside me" And the Kelbrid went into what looked like a fit of dry heaving.  
  
"Grab him!" Yelled Entragian to several Kelbrids, they looked hesitant but two went over and held the unfortunate Kelbrid to the ground, he was now writhing with pain.  
  
For a second I thought to myself that the infected Kelbrid was morphing, I guess in a way he was, the same way Ax had or Marco's arm had when Tak had got to them, before I could yell a warning Tak in his newest form was holding both his attempted guards by their necks, he slammed them together, holding them like life-size rag dolls, their heads cracked together and he released them, they just slumped to the ground.  
  
The Kelbrid turned Tak now stood around nine foot tall, I don't think the muscles had changed all that much, still proportionality the same, hard to say because all the Kelbrids we'd seen seemed fighting fit.  
  
Another Kelbrid rushed him and a blade unsheathed itself from Tak's arm, growing out of the back of his hand like a huge machete-shaped claw, Tak slashed faster than the eye could follow and the unfortunate Kelbrids head came cleanly off, his body kept attacking, going in to tackle Tak around the waist before realising it was dead and collapsing.  
  
Okay so maybe there had been some other changes than just proportion, I certainly hadn't seen any other Kelbrids do that, wouldn't have wanted to either, I'd be having nightmares for months over just that one.  
  
A barrage of laser-fire came at Tak, he ducked and weaved but even those shots that did hit him seemed to have no ill affects, he defiantly was the perfect survivor, constantly adapting. That was a real bitch for us.  
  
[What are we going to do Sir?] Asked Santorelli, panic seeping into his voice.  
  
Inspiration struck, [Get away from him, take cover behind that tank-thing] I called to all of them. We pulled ourselves together and ran for the relative shelter of the minitank.  
  
A Kelbrid had just jumped back behind the controls again as we got there, he gripped the aiming joystick and aimed directly at Tak, Tak saw this just in time, laser fire blasted from the end of the barrel but Tak hit the deck and the sizzling bolt of energy passed harmlessly overhead only to explode a large portion of wall at the other end of the room.  
  
Tak leapt to his feet and punched out the Kelbrid behind the controls before he could fire off another shot and then went about crushing the control. [We are so screwed] Jeanne announced.  
  
"Not entirely, there's always the option left for the bravest of the brave who fight for the side of good" Entragian said with an air of royalty.  
  
"What's that?" Asked Menderash.  
  
"Strategic retreat, let's get the fuck outta here" Said Entragian with a toothy Kelbrid smile.  
  
And so, it being the wisest suggestion at the time, we ran.  
  
~To Be Continued~  
  
Britz: See how fast was that? Pretty damn fast if you ask me, review and applaud me for my effort. 


	8. All Good Things Must Come To An End, Oth...

Britz-Welcome to what should be the final instalment of 'The Continued', well defiantly is the final instalment if you're reading this, if I changed my mind I'd change these A/N's wouldn't I?  
  
Disclaimer-Still nothing mine.  
  
~The Continuation of the Continuation of the Continuation of The Continued, Continued, Continued, Continued, Continued~  
(Yes, I went and counted it out.)  
  
Chapter Twenty-One: Tobias  
  
We ran for it, or rather they ran, I flew.  
  
I don't think Tak followed yet, still busy with the Kelbrids, but we all felt the need to get as far away from him as possible, when you see someone take heavy laser fire without a scratch, or for that matter be blasted to goo and still be fighting fit moments later, well you didn't want to stick around when you're on their bad side.  
  
But when I rounded the corner I stopped dead, which isn't easy in mid-air let me tell you, the hallway ahead was flanked by a hideously familiar group, one I'd seen so many times, over and over again, but only in my dreams.  
  
There were two lionesses, a cape buffalo, and finally, a polar bear, although I could not tell one polar bear from another, I knew this was the same yeerk in morph that had dealt Rachel the killing blow.  
  
[Animorphs!] They yelled.  
  
"[Oh shit!]" We yelled back.  
  
They flanked the hallway, so that's why they hadn't been with Tak; they'd been set up to guard our escape route.  
  
[Get them!] Ordered the polar bear, they moved in to attack.  
  
So did we, I saw Marco was morphing once more and Menderash had drawn back so he wasn't in the way of the fight, he could hardly do anything against this lot, Jeanne and the yeerk polar bear crashed together, mountains of white fur colliding. Entragian and Jake tackled the two lionesses while Ax and Santorelli went for the buffalo, unfortunately Ax still seemed shaky and the buffalo kept blocking his neck with his horns.  
  
But I had to go for the Polar bear, he was mine, I swooped at him but there was no room for decent altitude, I left barely a mark, I went at him again and he battered me away with one massive paw, I don't think he even knew he did it, he was busy fighting Jeanne.  
  
Once I'd pulled myself together Ax had crumpled and the buffalo had gored both Santorelli Jeanne, the two lionesses were unconscious or dead and Jake and Entragian were now trying to take down the buffalo, Marco swung cinderblock fists into the polar bear while Jeanne swiped with diminishing strength.  
  
Jake bite into the buffalo's throat and was thrown off, it made a move to gore Marco and Marco punched it full in the face, blood spurted from it's neck wound, Entragian gripped it by the horns and twisted, harder and harder until a loud snap rang out and the buffalo dropped.  
  
That left only the polar bear, somehow at the back of mind, I knew he'd be the last to go down, just one of those things I guess.  
  
Marco swung powerful fists into his midsection but was battered around by the bear's paws, Jeanne and Santorelli were bleeding to profusely to do any good and were demorphing near Menderash, Ax was climbing his to feet again, Jake was battered away, Entragian slipped under a swinging paw and got in a few of his faster than the eye could follow punches before he got hit away.  
  
What could I do? It occurred to me to start morphing to Hork-Bajir but before I could put that into action Tak rounded the corner, the mutant Kelbrid smile on his face would be enough to send lions, tigers and bears (oh my) running for their lives.  
  
And considering that all three of those animals were on our team Jake yelled [Run! Get out of here! Go!] The others gathered themselves but not me, the bear was still alive, the bastard who killed Rachel could not be allowed to live.  
  
Jake stopped by me [come on Tobias, lets go.]  
  
[No Jake, you go, he's got to die, for what he did to Rachel.]  
  
"You're gonna take on that big bastard by yourself?" Entragian had stopped by us to see what was going on, "good bloody luck."  
  
[The bear has got to die.] I replied, seething with anger.  
  
"Oh, the bear, well if that's the only problem..." Entragian pulled out his sidearm, aimed, pulled the trigger and the polar bear's head blew up with a flash of red light "There you are, problem solved." He took off again.  
  
Jake and I did as well, I felt strangely empty, mixed feelings over the simple way the monster that had destroyed my love had died, [if you had the gun, why didn't you shoot them all and save us the trouble?]  
  
"I don't like guns." He admitted, "they make me nervous."  
  
Chapter Twenty-Two: Marco  
  
I knuckle-ran through endless Kelbrid hallways, Tak roaring behind us. "In here!" Yelled Entragian and we jumped through an open set of silver doors.  
  
It was an elevator, fortunately for us, a very big one, I turned towards Tak, he was tearing down the hallway. "Comeon comeon" I could hear Entragian chanting as he pushed the door-close button and like any bad movie the doors closed mere seconds before he reached us "ship yard" Entragian said into the air at nothing in particular.  
  
"Ship yard" repeated a mechanical voice and I could feel the elevator moving downwards, typical elevator music piped out of unseen speakers, I shifted, feeling suddenly uncomfortable in my own skin, then sighed inwardly when I realised I could hear someone else humming along with the tune of the elevator music.  
  
The elevator kept descending, everyone kept squirming, this felt too tense after everything else, I started wishing that Tak's arm would come smashing through the roof just to break the tension when there was a ding and the doors slid open, "ship yard" repeated the voice and we all piled out.  
  
The place was like giant parking lot, filled with ships of every description "nice collection" Santorelli said.  
  
"All this from expired parking tickets" Entragian replied off-handily as we walked through rows of fantastic spacecraft. "Now here's my baby" he said and gestured upwards, like most of the ships in the yard Entragian's ship was far bigger than a house, it was jet-black all over and shaped like a giant thick cigar with enormous engines at one end and a blocky shape at the front that looked vaguely like a water buffalo's head.  
  
On the breeze I heard a ding, "ship yard" and a low growl from where we'd just come, Entragian spoke up "Everyone on board then."  
  
[You're coming with us?] Jake asked.  
  
"Well of course, I could hardly leave 'Me Julie' in your hands could I, are you nuts?"  
  
[Fair enough, but we are on the run from Tak, are you sure about this?] Tobias said.  
  
"Hell I got some vacation days coming up, could hardly pass up on an opportunity like this, saving the Universe with a bunch of shape-changing aliens from an old horror story come true." Entragian replied.  
  
"Old horror story, you've heard of Tak before?" Santorelli asked.  
  
"Only in rugged space bars where the meanest and toughest of space trash come together to exchange tales of blood-chilling horror." Entragian said, mock scary.  
  
[A simple yes would have sufficed] I told him.  
  
Another low growl sounded, closer this time, Tak was trying to find us, following the sound of our voices.  
  
[Right, that, lets get out of here then!] Jake ordered, Entragian pulled out a small remote from a pouch near his holster, clicked a button, a noise that sounded suspiciously like a car alarm being turned off rang out and a ramp descended from the ship's midsection.  
  
We ran, flew and knuckle-walked on board, Entragian slapped a button at the top and the ramp sprung back into the ship, we ran through the ship, Entragian leading the way as we twisted and turned through corridors than we were in the helm I guess, lots of controls view screens and some swivelly chairs kind of gave that away, everything lit up as we walked in, even better than clap lights.  
  
Entragian sat in the head swivelly chair right in front of a big view screen, or maybe in was just a windscreen, I dunno, he pulled some levers and I felt the ship hum to life around me.  
  
"Look! There he is!" Said Menderash, pointing to a view screen, Tak was outside the ship and he looked pissed.  
  
[Don't worry he can't get in here] Jake assured.  
  
"We don't really know what he can and can't do," muttered Jeanne under her breath.  
  
"Well in any case hold on to your arse, it's time for takeoff" Entragian called out, then he looked like he'd come to a sudden realisation he began hunting around in a space behind the controls.  
  
[What is it?] I asked, he just held up a scaly hand to silence me.  
  
"He's climbing the hull!" Menderash yelled.  
  
"Ahh, here it is." Entragian pulled out from behind the controls a pair of fuzzy dice on an elastic string; he hung and twisted the string around a view screen hanging above the main screen, one that was suspiciously the shape and size of a rear-view mirror "nearly jinxed the whole thing."  
  
Entragian tugged at a lever and I felt a huge pull at my body, the view screen showed us now zooming above the Kelbrid city. "He slipped! He's gone!" Menderash cried. "Could he really survive a fall like that?"  
  
[Most likely] Ax murmured quietly.  
  
"Well if that's so, how can we leave, how can we keep going when we don't know if he's dead?" Santorelli said.  
  
I was demorphing now, I looked at Santorelli with changing eyes, "just tell yourself" I said "that you're leaving it open for a sequel."  
  
  
~THE MERCIFUL END, or is it?~ (what a cliché.)  
  
A crowd of Kelbrids had gathered at the police tape around the enormous hole in the road, a couple of crashed hover-cars flanked the hole from which sobbing Kelbrids were lead away into waiting ambulances.  
  
Only one police car has got there so far, some big problem at the station had diverted them apparently, only one lone Kelbrid cop stood inside the tape, his partner had left a couple of minutes ago 'off to get some air' he had said, bull, he'd just wanted to throw up without anyone watching, it was understandable though, Clint had also seen what was down the hole and it wasn't pretty.  
  
He walked back to the crowd, "It's alright folks, nothing to see here, keep it clear" all his usual rubber-neckers repertoire, though they didn't seem to want to clear, of course it was just a big hole in the ground but people didn't come dropping out of the sky and put those big holes in the ground every other day.  
  
Clint heard a strange buzzing coming from the hole, he turned, some sort of creature was shakily flying its way out, "hello there" it said with an unusual chivalry in it's raspy voice.  
  
The Kelbrids gasped, Clint pulled his gun on the creature "What the hell are you buddy?"  
  
The creature ignored his question, "so officer, what's your name?"  
  
Clint was a little taken aback but answered "name's Clint"  
  
The creature's eyes narrowed "Eastwood?"  
  
"No, Marcuccio," Clint answered.  
  
"Well officer Clint, you and I are going to become very close, very very close"  
  
"What the hell are you?" Clint yelled, gun never wavering.  
  
A flicker of amusement went through the creatures red eyes, it gestured at itself with one claw "why me? I'm you're worst nightmare."  
  
It rushed him, several shots were fired but they went far too wide. Some of the gathered crowd ran, others stood and stared, some leaned over the police line as if to try and help him from a safe distance, as if the police line was impossible to cross, even in circumstances such as these.  
  
But all ran when Officer Clint Marcuccio stood up as a new Kelbrid, when he straightened to more than nine feet tall and the blood-red of the creatures own eyes flowed through his own like liquid fire they all turned their tails and ran.  
  
"Baby, I'm back," whispered Tak.  
  
~TO BE, CONTINUED??~  
  
Well I wouldn't say that's a certainty at this point but if you liked 'The Continued' write a review or drop me a line telling me if you'd like a sequel, peace out.  
  
-Britz 


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